by Amy Lillard
“Why are we stopping?”
“I have a feelin’ this story needs all of my attention.”
He was probably right, but she found it easier to talk when his eyes studied the road, instead of intently waiting for her to continue. She looked away, and tucked her hair behind her ear, giving her hands something to do. “I’ve always wanted a big wedding,” Avery said after a minute. “Long, white dress, doves and lilies, the works, you know?”
He nodded, and Avery wondered how elaborate Amish weddings were. She bet they didn’t go into debt thousands of dollars and invite half the state. And for what?
She took a deep breath. “But Jack, my fiancé . . . my ex-fiancé, wanted to elope.”
“Run away and get married?”
Avery nodded. “He kept saying he was too busy with his movie and the guest list was getting out of hand. I kept fighting him on it. I really had my heart set on being princess for a day. But then, I decided that maybe he was right. Maybe I was just being foolish. I loved him, and he loved me. Why did we need a big ceremony to prove it? So I grabbed Louie and the first plane I could catch, and I flew up here to tell him I’d changed my mind.”
“That was the night you wrecked your car?”
She nodded again. “He borrowed it to drive up here from Dallas. I thought it would be a great surprise for him, for me to just show up. So I didn’t call. I figured the town wasn’t that big. I rented a car and drove around until I spotted my car at a hotel.”
“And?”
“I was the one surprised.” That wasn’t exactly true. Jack had been pretty shocked when she’d walked in on him and the curvy blonde local. “He was unfaithful to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Avery was saddened by her own story, but not devastated. Amazing what two weeks of peace and solitude—and good company—could do for a person.
“You deserve better than that.”
Avery smiled. “Of course I do. But I’ll never find it.”
“Now there’s a good attitude.” Gideon took up the reins and clicked his tongue at the horses.
“You don’t understand.” She braced her hand against the seat to steady herself as he pulled the wagon back onto the road. “Jack wasn’t the first. I’ve had a lot of fiancés, but they only want one thing.”
He cleared his throat and a deep red color started at his collar and worked its way upward. “I don’t think we should be talkin’ about this.”
“Not that.” She laughed despite herself. “My father’s money. The Hamilton millions.”
“And this is more important to them than bein’ faithful and honest?”
“I suppose so.”
“Crazy Englisch.” Gideon shook his head. “And you saw this Jack in town?”
Avery nodded. “He’s here doing research for a movie. A motion picture film.”
“I know what one is.”
“Oh.”
“Did you talk to him?”
She nodded. If you wanted to call it that.
“And he’s why you’re angry?”
“Yes. No.”
“It has to be one or the other.”
Avery sighed. “I guess it’s a little of both, but mostly I’m mad at myself.” For falling for his lies. She was angry with Jack as well, for thinking he could take advantage of Gideon—or any of the kind hearts in the district—like they weren’t really people.
“He is gone now, jah?”
Avery returned his smile. “Jah.”
“Then let’s not worry about him anymore today.”
To Avery, that sounded like a fine idea.
Over a lunch of cold biscuit sandwiches filled with leftover bacon and apricot preserves, Avery watched Gideon. “Is your brother still coming over tomorrow to help paint?”
Aside from wanting to do roof repairs to get Gideon’s house ready for the spring storms that would surely hit soon, Gabriel had talked his brother into painting the outside of the house. With the help of the neighbors, of course.
Anyone could see the little house needed a coat of paint in the worst way, but she also had to give kudos to Gabriel for convincing Gideon to let others come and help. One more step closer getting on with his life.
“Jah. And Dat and the boys. Maybe even a few others.”
Avery stopped eating. “A few others? How many people are we talking about?”
Gideon shrugged. “Ten. Maybe fifteen.”
“Fifteen people!” Fifteen hungry, working men. Her sandwich caught in her throat. “What will I serve them to eat?” What had Lizzie said? You can’t accept guests without an offering of food.
There were tables of food at Hester Stoltzfus’s house. How ever could she pull that together in under twenty-four hours? Arranging dinner parties had been a talent of hers in the English world, but that was no amazing feat when she had a phone and the Yellow Pages. All she’d had to do was get in touch with a willing caterer and the rest was up to them.
“Mamm will help. She and the boys will bring over the tables and meat and such. All you need to do is bake some bread and stir up some lemonade.”
Avery smiled. “I can do that.”
After they ate, she dragged out her cookbook and began skimming the recipes for interesting breads. She knew she couldn’t compete with the deep-seated talent of Amish women and their bread-baking abilities, but she was willing to give it a try. She chose three recipes, an onion cheese bread, a raisin cinnamon bread, and a mayonnaise bread that, if nothing else, sounded interesting.
That she could take something as ordinary as flour, mix it with a few ingredients, and make something to feed the neighbors amazed her.
Still, it was no easy achievement. Her hands and arms ached from kneading the bread, turning it over, and letting it rise again. The recipe said this break was to give the yeast time to fulfill its duty, but Avery knew it was to keep from killing the bread maker.
Yet the house smelled divine, with a yeasty-rich aroma filling every nook and cranny. A definite satisfaction came from seeing the bread rise and turn a delicious golden brown under her watchful care. She had turned heads and charmed diplomats, but nothing gave her the same satisfaction as this afternoon of baking.
She leaned against the counter, her hands caked with flour and dough. “Are you sure this is all I need to cook?”
Gideon turned a full circle in the tiny kitchen, pointing out each loaf of bread as he went. “There’re eight loaves of bread, Annie.”
She made a face. “Not enough?”
“Definitely not.”
“Really?” She looked around and then glanced at the porcelain clock on top of the china hutch. “I guess I could make a couple more loaves after supper.”
Gideon laughed. “There will definitely not be enough men here tomorrow to eat all this bread.”
“Oh, you.” She swatted him playfully on the arm.
“Maybe we should invite a few more neighbors to help,” he said with a laugh.
Dawn brought with it a beautiful day for painting, the wind calm, and the sun not too hot as it peeked over the horizon.
Gideon and Avery ate a quick breakfast, then readied the house for the frolic.
Shortly after eight, everyone started arriving, and by nine the renovation was in full swing. The women set up the tables under the shade of Gideon’s oak tree.
Avery was as nervous as if she were entertaining diplomats and presidents. She wanted to do this right. More than anything she wanted this to go off without a hitch—for Gideon’s sake.
“Guder mariye, Annie.” Mary Elizabeth sidled up beside her and leaned in close so no one else could hear. “Did you make that bread?”
“Good morning to you, too.” Avery smiled. “And yes, I did.”
“Aenti and I
were wondering.” Her eyes twinkled. “You’ve been practicing.”
“A little.” Avery had practically worn out the cookbook. Joyce from the library was probably going to make her pay for it, but that was all right. Maybe she’d use it after she got home.
That’d be a hoot. She could throw a dinner party and invite all her friends. She’d serve them raisin bread and honey butter made from fresh cream and local honey. She tried to imagine her crowd all standing around in sequins and tuxedos eating Amish fare off linen napkins.
The image wouldn’t produce. And yet sitting out in the sunshine, watching the men scrape the house and tape the windows seemed as natural as breathing.
“Samuel!” Katie Rose jogged across the yard after Gabriel’s youngest. Avery looked up in time to see a flash of blue and black before she was hit full force with an all-body hug from the four-year-old.
“Oof!” She fell back with Sam sprawled on top of her. He sat up, king of the mountain style, straddling her rib cage.
He blinked his big, almond-shaped eyes, his little boy grin melting her heart. “Annie.”
“Hi, Sam.” Avery ruffled his bright red hair, his hat long gone after his sprint across the yard.
“Oh, my goodness, Annie. I’m so sorry.” Katie Rose panted as she caught up with the little boy. She grabbed him under the arms and lifted him off Avery. “Samuel, you are a bensel.”
“No, he’s not.” She didn’t really know what a bensel was, but she knew Sam was not one. He was a sweetheart, so full of wonder despite his challenges, and she adored him. “I don’t mind.” Avery smiled down at him where he had pushed himself once again into the folds of his aunt’s skirt. “That’s the best welcome I’ve received in a long time.”
Katie Rose smiled with relief. “It’s just that he makes some people uncomfortable.”
“That’s their problem,” Avery stated. “Because he’s wunderbaar.”
At hearing the word, Samuel peeked his head around his aunt and smiled at Avery. She held out a hand to him. “Come, little Samuel. Let’s go see if we can find you something interesting to play with.”
Avery watched amazed at the simplicity of Amish children at play. She had never really given it much thought, but as with all things Amish, playtime was simple. No gaming devices, music players, or computers, just children of all ages with a bat and a ball. While their parents scraped and painted, the kids—with Katie Rose serving as both umpire and coach—played a game of softball. Avery sat in the shade with a ball of yarn entertaining Samuel with string tricks. He sat fascinated, watching as she twisted the yarn between her fingers to make the patterns: Spider Web and Jacob’s Ladder. Then she taught him each move slowly. He laughed and enjoyed the afternoon.
She had learned string tricks long ago and hadn’t thought about them again until today. Hadn’t even thought about that summer at camp, the one she had gone to the year after her mother had died and her father didn’t know what to do with a ten-year-old girl. At first he’d hired a nanny. When that didn’t work out, he shipped her off to summer camp in the hills of Missouri.
She hadn’t wanted to go. She had cried, but never in front of him, begged the servants to go to him on her behalf, but she never once told him herself that she didn’t want to go. She couldn’t stand up to him. Still couldn’t to this day. That’s why she hadn’t called him to tell him she was still in the States. And that she wasn’t coming back for the Dunstan Pro-Am. She had called her friend, Allison, and talked her into helping out in her place. Then she had texted her father with the news and immediately turned off her phone.
Chicken. But if she talked to her father, he would guilt her into going back to Dallas, and she wasn’t ready for that. She needed a little more time. She was enjoying herself too much to return just yet.
“Annie, come on,” Lizzie called.
Avery glanced down at Samuel, reluctant to exclude him. “Let’s go play some ball, Sammy.”
They played for nearly an hour, hitting the ball and running around the bases like their lives depended on it. There was fun and laughter and such a sense of well-being.
Never before had she ever felt such a part of something as she did right then. There was a camaraderie, a family love that seemed to happen when good neighbors and friends got together to help one another.
She could never picture Mr. Alastair Barnes, their closest neighbor, or any of her father’s cohorts for that matter, climbing a ladder to help. They might get paint on their Armani suits. The only ladders they climbed were corporate ones.
Sadness for them came over her. Dinner parties and cocktail hour, operas and plays, even their artistic value couldn’t compare to the . . . the . . . togetherness she felt here.
Love, true friends, and fellowship had all been missing in her life. With Gideon’s family, she felt as if a hole inside her had been filled. She felt warm and welcome, more than she did among the people she called friends and family. Her father was always formulating some business deal or heading off to one beach spa or another to keep his soon-to-be wife, Maris, happy. There just wasn’t a lot of time left over for Avery.
Not that she minded all that much. She was an adult. She didn’t need constant attention. Still dinner with her father—without forty people in attendance—would have been nice from time to time. Maybe she should bring that up to him when she returned to Dallas.
Suddenly that thought didn’t appeal to her, not at all. She did not want to return to Dallas, nor stand up to her father. In that moment she just wanted to remain. Remain in Oklahoma. Remain with the Amish.
Remain with Gideon.
When the men stopped to take a break, the women fed them, and gave them lemonade to drink. The only problem Avery could see was that the women and men ate separately. She loved the kinship she felt with the ladies that surrounded her—Ruth, Katie Rose, Lizzie, and the rest. But she really wanted to sit with Gideon, find how he was holding up, how it felt to once again be accepted by the people around him.
She found satisfaction in seeing the rough scrape of beard on his cheeks and the smooth curve of his upper lip. He was growing his beard back. He was sitting among the men, talking and sharing stories, every now and then laughing at something one of them had to say. Somehow she felt the light was shining back in his world after being absent for a very long time.
He looked up and caught her watching him. Their eyes held, and Avery couldn’t look away. It was almost like that day in the buggy when some unknown force pulled them together, except yards lay between them instead of inches. Instead of them being alone, people were everywhere, family and friends chattered around them instead of the simple call of the birds.
Then someone said something to him, and he looked away.
Avery felt the rush of blood to her face. She wanted to fan herself, run inside and hide, to go over and take his hand and see what would happen all at the same time.
Instead, she took one last lingering look at Gideon. Then she turned to Samuel and tickled his ribs, relishing in the musical laughter of a child.
9
The odor of fresh paint drifted in on the night breeze. It was a good smell, a kind of “new start” scent that said things were going to be different. After today, Avery really believed things were going to be different for Gideon.
She had been there three weeks and already his farm looked so different than it had when she’d first arrived. Besides the lack of snow.
Fields and gardens were planted, and flowers started to grow. The house was painted and clean. Now if she could do something about the state of his pasture. If only she could convince him to raise alpacas. Corn could only take him so far. He needed a sustainable crop. Surely, alpacas would provide that for him. They would give him something to care for, a reason and a purpose.
She used a piece of yarn to mark her place in the book on raising alpacas
for fun and profit and set it on the table at the foot of the couch. She had learned that the piece of yarn, as well as the one she and Samuel had played with most of the afternoon, had come from Miriam’s loom.
Upon first learning this, Avery worried the others might take exception. But seeing the yarn again was like a trip down memory lane for the women. She’d learned a lot about Gideon’s late wife through them. Miriam King Fisher was gentle and unassuming—two things she herself was not. Miriam was a fine woman, and well-respected in her community. She worked hard to pull her weight and fulfill what was expected of her. She tended the house and the sheep, and ran her own loom to make yarn and wool goods to sell in the marketplace. She sounded wonderful, and Avery could understand why he missed her so.
A part of her, just a tiny part, was jealous. She knew Gideon had loved his wife, his grieving alone was testimony to that, and that Miriam was admired by his family. Avery wished she had a little of that for herself—the love of a good man and family. She had been young when her mother died, but not so young that she didn’t remember life with her. Though her mother was loving and caring, Avery couldn’t imagine her in Ruth Fisher’s shoes. Her mother just wasn’t that . . . motherly.
And Avery could never proclaim that her family was very close. Her father had a brother they hadn’t seen in years. Avery knew the two men talked regularly, but neither one carved time out of their schedules to visit the other. Her mother’s family lived in Fort Worth, and she only saw them at charity functions they had been mutually invited to attend.
But today . . . today had been amazing. She knew what her friends would think about this new crowd. They would assume the Amish were simple and uneducated, but Avery loved them. The ladies talked about canning and jellies, pickles and diapers. The men worked hard and ate heartily. The sense of community and togetherness was tangible and something she had sorely been missing in her life. She hoped for another work frolic or even a barn raising soon. She wanted more to store up and keep with her after she had gone. From now until she to returned to Dallas, Avery planned on making the most of her time here.
